


Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story

by Darkwood_Princess



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, Jewish/Muslim auror team of Serling and Kasim, Letters, also MACUSA needs diversity, i just want graves and theseus to be friends, original percival graves and theseus scamander are old buddies, so I added some, someone had to notice that graves was being impersonated, the newtina aspect will be a lot later, theseus knows whats up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-07 14:32:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8804578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkwood_Princess/pseuds/Darkwood_Princess
Summary: Recovery comes in many forms, including rivers of ink.OrGraves has a pen pal across the pond.





	1. A Little Bit Off

**Author's Note:**

> This fledgling of a fandom has already produced so many beautiful fanfics and I've been fascinated by all the ones which include letters. I decided to add a story of my own, especially since I can truly see Graves and Theseus being people who became close friends during the war.
> 
> (Graves as a prickly dude with a soft heart is my favorite iteration)
> 
> (Also yes, the title is a reference to Hamilton because I believe that an answer to that question can be letters when it's not Eliza - or burnt for that matter)

**After all, what is every man? A horde of ghosts – like a Chinese nest of boxes – oaks that were acorns that were oaks. - Walter De La Mare - _The Return_**

He is half awake and drifting, his once formidable strength drained by a man whose only goal was to absorb the strength of the world, to bend and break the souls of all its inhabitants to his master vision and - most terrifying of all - have them believe it was in their best interests to submit. 

No, Percival Graves can be forgiven his current state of mental and physical malaise. After all, he has only been free of Grindelwald for 48 measly hours, not nearly long enough by anyone's estimate to do anything more than recover in peace and quiet. 

Graves has never put stock in others estimates. 

Dragging himself out of bed is terribly exhausting and yet he does it, determined to set right some of the damage done by the man who stole his identity. If that means correcting all the little problems he's found in his house until he has enough stamina to tackle his work, well then his house is getting a midnight makeover.

 (He does not want to think about Grindelwald riffling through his personal belongings. There is something incredibly disquieting about the slightly rearranged photos on the entrance table, the new dishes he'd just bought stained with use and already chipped, and his books misplaced or marked up.)

 His energy is still relatively low so he contents himself with the mail stacked neatly in his study, sorted meticulously by a madman. He wonders how long it took Grindelwald to learn to mimic his looping, precise cursive, how long to sound and act and carry himself like Head Auror Percival Graves.

 (It does not help his case that Graves has always kept journals, providing Grindelwald with enough fodder to impersonate him for years had he succeeded.)

 Settling down he grabs the top letter and frowns in frustration.

 The letter is addressed with a messy scrawl on practical parchment, proof that it's sender was never fond of flourishes or penmanship, something completely at odd with his public persona and Graves should know, given that Theseus Scamander is not only his Ministry of Magic Counterpart but a good friend.

 Shouldn't a good friend know when someone they’re close to is being impersonated? Grindelwald did not have any of the letters he had sent Theseus in the past, shouldn't something have tipped off his old comrade that Percival was not himself?

 Sighing, he pulls the letter from its paper prison and skims it with a cursory curiosity that quickly turns into the first real smile he's had in days.

Clever, Clever Theseus. The entire thing is written in a code they created in the war, a way to transmit readable messages comprehendible to the two of them alone but still mundane enough for prying eyes with the use of a simple spell. He spares a second to wonder if intelligence runs in the Scamander line given his recent acquaintance with the youngest son of the family, wonders how the brave and caring young man Theseus has always described his brother as became the awkward but no less endearing fellow he'd recently met.

 Siblings have a tendency to be biased in regards to their blood and Graves, having no siblings of his own, sees this best.

 (He remembers the tales of a younger Newton, the boy who charmed dragons in the way men his age should charm women, considered strange even by the ephemeral and ever shifting standards of their people.)

 The contents of the letter seem to be the norm in regards to mail between friends:

  _Dear Percy please tell me that new haircut of yours I saw in the papers was due to a bet you lost…_

Or

_I read that treatise you suggested. It was decent but it doesn’t beat anything written by Sir A.C. Doyle…_

Or even

_How do you console a wife whose birthday you missed because you were cracking an international spy ring????_

To anyone else these innocuous missives were just that, simple correspondence. For Graves the clues sprinkled throughout the letter rearranged themselves with the aid of the key, forming a simple but somewhat alarming message.

  _Percival,_

_You’re acting incredibly off in your letters and your coded messages have been sheer nonsense for the last six months. If I don’t receive a coded response by the first of the next month, I am personally coming to New York and figuring out what the bloody hell is wrong with you._

_Is it a girl? Because if I have to take an expensive portkey to the States on account of a romantic conquest, I swear you will find out just how well a Slytherin stands up against a Thunderbird, you big, galoomping plucked chicken._

_Yours in confusion,_

_Theseus Scamander_

The date of the letter was, by the sheer luck of it all, only a week ago, plenty of time for him to get a message out to the elder Scamander. Of course with the events of the last months, it seemed he’d be writing a novel instead of a letter.

Graves was still writing as the sun came up and his daytime security detail, Aurors Serling and Kasim checked in for duty. Lailah and Rod merely puttered around in the background, waiting for him to finish, still respectful even when so few could look him in the eye. 

 Life may not have been anywhere close to normal yet, and he knew that for a while it probably wouldn’t be, but with the sound of his people in the kitchen and the knowledge that his letter was winging its way across the Atlantic, it was a promising start.  


	2. Suspicions Confirmed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Theseus makes a fool of himself and News is delivered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mentally see Theseus as good in public and in battle but a total dork one on one/the rest of the time. Hope you all enjoy!

 

_Scamanders Do NOT Hide._

_Scamanders Do NOT Hide._

_Scamanders Do NOT ah bollocks, that_ is _Becky._

Theseus Hestia Leo Scamander ducked under his desk, hoping that his besotted secretary wouldn't actually see him diving for cover. Nature had blessed the red head with a slim figure, emerald eyes, and an overdose of charisma _that he didn't actually want_. Over the years he'd perfected the art of ducking into improbable spaces in order to avoid unwanted attention, places where ironically only his younger brother seemed capable of finding him.

(If anyone other than him made a crack about Hufflepuff's being finders, he would unapologetically destroy them in the politest voice possible.)

Becky McClanahan was a replacement for his far more agreeable secretary Aiko Kishimoto, but given that Aiko was on loan from the Kyoto Ministry in some sort of infernal exchange program designed to give young witches and wizards experience, he now had Becky from MACUSA - Georgia Branch.

It wasn't that she was a bad girl, really, just that he was, well, married and even if he hadn't been, Becky just wasn't his type. That and office romance was not only incredibly tacky but incredibly frowned upon.

He was going to have to confront the woman soon. War heroes did not fold themselves into under-the-desk-origami for just anybody. It was his own fault that everyone who met him thought he was down for never ending social contact. He just hated to see a woman cry.

The clacking of Becky's heels stopped inches from his desk. "Mr. Scammander, honey, I know you're under there."

Busted. Theseus jumped in surprise, banging his head on the underside of the desk. "How'd you - "

"Aiko left me a note. Said you were known to hide when people frustrated or bothered you, unless it was an absolute emergency. Now which is it? Do I frustrate you or bother you?"

"I, uhm, you seem a bit infatuated and I -"

Becky's laughter brightened up the room and Theseus cringed when he realized that she was actually laughing at him. "Oh darlin, that's hilarious. Not that I don't respect you, you're my boss. I think you're just confused. This is how we act where I'm from. You Brits are so stuffy our manners come across as flirtation!" She wiped tears from the corners of her eyes. "Brought you a letter from New York, hope it's good news."

Theseus was the color of her ruby lipstick at this point and winced as she handed the letter over. "My apologies Ms. McClanahan, I hope you don't think too less of me."

Becky winked at him and grinned, "Won't tell no one if you don't. It's not the first time a man's thought I was sweet on him when I wasn't. Nice to see some things don't change, no matter the country."

Theseus smacked himself in the forehead as she walked out, wondering how on Earth he could have made such a simple mistake. He'd known quite a few men and women from the former colonies, something as simple as culture shock shouldn't have gotten to him. Maybe it was all the stress of this unending Grindelwald nightmare, the reports of still more death and destruction by his followers enough to make even the strongest nerves jumpy. 

_(He'd already fought one war, was there really a need for another?)_

His attention shifted to the letter in his hands. Becky had said it was from New York and if it really was another paper full of gibberish from Percy, he was going to get that emergency portkey tonight because _six months of gibberish was ridiculous_.

Tearing into the letter and hastily casting the decoder charm, Theseus was relieved to see the words rearrange themselves into some semblance of order, his relief vanishing after the first few lines.

_Dear Thes,_

_Keep your pants on man. I'm alive. The world wanted me otherwise, but I'm alive. So no need to be wasting political favors on my account. You're going to need those in the upcoming months and years because what I have to tell you isn't particularly pleasant._

_(Also we definitively settled Thunderbird vs. Slytherin back in '22. You lost man, just accept it. I still have your signed surrender after you were hit with 73 snowballs and one particularly disgruntled groundhog.)_

_Grindelwald kidnapped me six months ago and held me prisoner in a trunk under my own bed. I thought I was enough to fight him when he showed up. I was a fool, clearly._

_For that period of time, he's been me. Living in my house, doing my job, wearing my face and my clothes. No one noticed the switch at all. Not Seraphina. Not my subordinates. No one around me except your little brother realized that something was off, and he only after I made some ridiculously daft comment about weaponizing an obscurous._

~~_He'd never met me Theseus and he figured it out. Does everyone around me have such a dim opinion of my company that they couldn't tell an imposter from reality?_ ~~

_I'm grateful that you eventually cottoned on to the truth. It, truthfully, makes this slightly more bearable, this slow reconstruction of my life. Who knows if everyone will ever treat me the same again? Even the healers stare at me oddly, their faces fine but their eyes full of distrust. It's all the more disturbing for my having done nothing to deserve it._

_(And how do I know who is loyal at work and who is a plant? This is the nightmare that keeps giving.)_

_Auror Tina Goldstein was the one to find me, your brother hanging only steps behind her. He's awkward but no less good of a man than you described him, my friend. And anyone who can make Goldstein laugh deserves a medal. She's a bearcat, that one._

_Anyways, the sun is coming up and you seemed truly insistent in a response. So here it is, you ridiculously mothering excuse for a politician._

_Yours in reality after six months,_

_Percival Graves_

Theseus rocked back in his chair, shock settling over his handsome features as he processed the information before him. It is odd the thoughts one has when surprised with drastic news, thoughts such as:

_I've been corresponding with a despot for six months._

And

_HA I was right._

And

_He had to bring up the groundhog, didn't he._

But most importantly, he worried for Percival's mental health, for his friend's safety. That and what his soon to be returning little brother had left out of his letters from New York.

Pulling out a paper and quill, he began to scratch out a return missive.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written quickly over my lunch break, so any errors are my own!

**Author's Note:**

> Writing this was my small break from studying for my exam on Monday, so please be kind - especially if there are typos! 
> 
> Update! The exam went well but I don't know how to stop this note from popping up in subsequent chapters.


End file.
